It wasn’t long ago that I posted about Jump Gate by Matt Worden. Since then I was able to sit down and play the game with my kids. The rules were easy to read, the game easy to setup, and it was all very accessible.

In Jump Gate, you’re trying to hop from planet to planet gathering resources and trying to claim planets themselves. You do this by playing NavComp cards from your hands that have the matching numbers from the resource, planet, or jump you’d like to make. Moving from planet to planet takes an action, but you can only move to adjacent planets unless you play a NavComp card to jump to a father one. Planets much be scanned for resources before the resources can be marked, and eventually claimed. Once all the resources on a plant have been scanned, the planet can now be claimed if you have the proper NavComp cards.

The real trick here is to make the most of your limited actions to gather needed items to win. You also need to keep an eye on your opponents so you can successfully block their plans.

It’s a whole lot of fun, and has a surprising amount of depth for a lighter game. You can buy Jump Gate from The Game Crafter for around $30.